‘Language and the Creative Mind’:
New Directions in Cognitive Linguistics
MIKE BORKENT, BARBARA DANCYGIER, AND JENNIFER HINNELL
This volume appears as the next installment in the CSLI series of edited
volumes on cognitive and functional linguistics, Conceptual Structure, Discourse and Language (CSDL). The name of the series reflects the theme of
the first conference, held in 1994 at the University of California, San Diego,
and the title of the first volume, edited by Adele Goldberg (1996). It is now
also the name of the North American organization of cognitive and functional linguists—one of the national affiliate organizations of the International Cognitive Linguistics Association. In this volume, we present selected papers from the 11th biennial CSDL conference, held in Vancouver, Canada, on May 17–20, 2012.
Over the years, the conferences have reflected various emerging themes
and research methods, following the developments in cognitive grammar,
construction grammar, frame semantics, metaphor theory, blending theory,
the rise of experimental methods, the study of situated cognition, embodiment, gesture, and many other research interests. For the most part, the
work presented in the volumes has focused on the analysis of language and
its cognitive underpinnings, but the study of cultural artifacts and the role of
the human body began to figure more and more prominently in the selections presented in subsequent volumes.
In the time that has passed since the first conference in 1994, cognitive
linguistics has developed not only in its theoretical sophistication, but also
in its range of disciplinary and interdisciplinary interests. While focusing on
the mechanisms of meaning emergence in linguistic contexts, the discipline
Language and the Creative Mind.
Mike Borkent, Barbara Dancygier, and Jennifer Hinnell (eds).
Copyright © 2013, CSLI Publications.
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has demonstrated to researchers in other areas of study that its methodology
is suitable to other arenas in which meaning construction is the focus. In a
sense, it has become clear that the cognitive pathways of meaning construction described in the context of language use might be, to a large degree, the
same pathways that our minds follow in processing visual artifacts, performative events, literary texts, and so on.
The explanatory and descriptive power of cognitive linguistic theories
has helped promote new developments in linguistics and in other disciplines. There seem to be several ways in which the explanatory potential
has been explored in various contexts. Most conspicuously, the close interaction between the study of language and the study of co-speech gesture has
opened the door to a more structured view of linguistic communication as
more appropriately described in terms of ‘multimodal communication’ (e.g.
Forceville and Urios-Aparisi 2009; Müller et al. 2013). Also, researchers in
stylistics, poetics, and semiotics (closely related disciplines, though many
scholars insist on the importance of their dividing lines) have been looking
for cognitive explanations of the extraordinary variety of meanings that
emerge in the processing of literary texts (e.g. Stockwell 2009). Finally,
disciplines interested in various forms of art (visual art, music, dance, and
theatre) have found inspiration in the refreshed understanding of the connection between formal choices (embodied, visual, or auditory) and the potential for meaningful and emotionally fulfilling engagement of the listeners
or viewers (e.g. Veale, Feyaerts, and Forceville 2013).
All of these areas of meaning emergence reflect the flexibility of the
human mind, the body, and language; they capture the innovative and creative ways of expressing meaning. This seems to be the new power of the
theories of language and cognition that the CSDL participants, presenters
and authors have tapped into over the years.
For the 11th conference in Vancouver we thus chose a new theme: ‘Language and the Creative Mind’. We wanted to see what an open invitation to
reach beyond the traditional limits of cognitive linguistic enquiry would
bring to the attention of both linguists and the representatives of the verytentatively-related disciplines. The response we received through the papers
that were presented at the conference and submitted to this volume helped
us see the newly emerging understanding of the concept of ‘creativity’. Rather than confirm the unpredictable, open-ended, and inscrutable nature of
what creativity is often taken to represent, the facts presented suggest that
new communicative forms and new meanings emerge in the innovative but
fully cohesive manipulation of embodied concepts, along the paths established by familiar and predictable forms.
NEW DIRECTIONS IN COGNITIVE LINGUISTICS / xv
The analogy we can rely on here is that of the distinction between literal
and figurative language. The distinction was a cornerstone of traditional
work in linguistics. Meanings, it was claimed, are classical categories neatly
packaged into convenient forms called words, and combined into more
complex structures via rules. But since the emergence of metaphor theory
and frame semantics, it has become clear that new meanings arise through
trimming, expanding, projecting, or otherwise manipulating complex meaning structures in ways that serve new communicative needs. In their study
of the nature of figurative language, Dancygier and Sweetser (2014) argue
that figurative meanings emerge as a result of the manipulation of preexisting frames, at appropriate levels of conceptual schematicity. We can
talk about a number of such manipulation mechanisms (metaphor, simile,
blending, irony, etc.), but we should also include the role some grammatical
constructions play in the emergence of figurative meanings, as well as explain the influence of conceptual viewpoint on the nature of the manipulation. These observations refer primarily to the use of lexical and grammatical forms of language use, but there is no reason, in principle, that such considerations should not be extended to other areas of meaning emergence. In
the course of the conference and in preparing this volume we have found
various types of evidence supporting these ideas. However, as papers in this
volume also demonstrate, cross-modal communication further complicates
our understanding of creativity.
The papers gathered here have been grouped to reflect various aspects
of the interaction between the body, language and cognition; they also represent various communicative modalities. The first section, Creativity versus Conventionality, brings together papers exploring various contexts in
which forms of figurative thought are studied in connection to the emergence of more conventional forms of expression. Casasanto’s paper begins
the exploration, examining the role that language plays in the development
of different kinds of metaphorical mappings, and reveals important processes that lead to the emerging mental models being either language-specific or
universal. Feist and Breaux look at experimental data to argue that language
users retain psychologically real connections between polysemous (literal
versus metaphorical) uses of prepositions in English. In a similar vein, Duffley looks at constraints on creativity in idiomatic expressions, using a corpus to examine instances where speakers stretch the commonly understood
bounds of the idiom. The examples analyzed show clearly that creativity
can easily build on conventionality, as long as the idiom preserves some
‘cognitive reality’ of a scene; the meanings of idioms may be ‘dormant’, but
can be easily awakened. A case for mappings of yet another kind—namely
between mathematical concepts and spatial thinking—is made in Winter
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and Matlock, who find that mathematics uses conceptual structure from
physical experiences (a theme we will come back to) in performing simple
arithmetic. These papers all examine ‘creativity’ in the domain of metaphors in language use and reveal complex relations between areas of usage.
The next section, Constructions and Frames, offers several papers interested more centrally in formal aspects of linguistic expression—
developing their explanations in frameworks such as cognitive grammar,
construction grammar, or frame semantics. Langacker continues his work
on nominal expressions by offering a detailed analysis of indefinite grounding and complex quantifiers: the semantic import of the ‘a’ in ‘a little’.
Isutzu and Isutzu examine grammaticalization pathways—precisely, what
kind of process accounts for the final particle development in typologically
different languages (English and Japanese). In an analysis drawing from
both Cognitive Grammar and Mental Spaces Theory, Hong examines the
grammaticalization process of the Korean connective –taka, and suggests
constraints under which –taka can be used, while uncovering affective implications of the concepts of predictiveness and alternativity. Another analysis examining the constraints of linguistic constructions under a variety of
criteria is Izutsu and Koguma’s typology of voice constructions (benefactive and adversative) in Japanese, Korean, and Ainu. Lastly, in a frame semantic account of separation verbs (cutting/breaking) with regard to both
physical situations and spatial terms, Fujii, Radetzky, and Sweetser suggest,
on the basis of crosslinguistic data, that both lexical and constructional
meanings emerge in the context of manipulation of multiple frames—a
claim which proposes a different approach to both types of meaning. In
sum, the types of processes identified in this section are not just familiar
examples of grammaticalization or lexical patterns; rather, they reveal crucial components of the meaning processes involved.
In the section on Creativity and Discourse, readers will find analyses of
a range of discourse forms—literary, political, scientific, and rhetorical. The
studies provide examples of analyses that bring out both the specificity of
each genre and the general mechanisms involved. Stockwell offers a creative reading of Ben Jonson’s ‘To Celia’, suggesting that a combination of
stylistic and cognitive methods yields the most fulsome analysis of literature. In applying Leonard Talmy’s concept of fictive motion to larger scale
literary constructions (rather than sentence or clause levels more often the
purview of linguists), Deggan demonstrates that linguistic and conceptual
tools can open new and promising avenues in literary investigations. Similarly, examinations of American public discourse demonstrate the explanatory power of cognitive linguistic analyses when applied to discourse-level
phenomena. Matlock uncovers important features of political discourse,
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while Moder shows how the think of it as spacebuilder uses its constructional and metaphoric features to structure specific forms of discourse of
science. McKellin extends the study of discourse beyond the Englishspeaking world in his examination of the cognitive allegories used by the
Managalase of Papua New Guinea to negotiate, create, and manipulate social and political relationships. He shows how cognitive linguistic tools can
help clarify the strategies employed by speakers in some of the most
daunting forms of discourse. As we’ve seen in the papers in the first few
sections, linguists have much to offer in the understanding of figurative
meaning. Linguists, though, as this section suggests, can also learn much
from examining various types of discourse—literary, political, scientific, or
allegorical.
Many of the processes involved in these first three sections of the volume can also extend to other modalities. It is now commonly understood that
the experience of the human body supports a range of conceptualizations
and linguistic expressions, both literal and figurative. But it is also important to note how figurative conceptualizations and visual perceptions
either prompt the body into action or use the body to support the conceptualizations. The penultimate section, Viewpoint, Language, and the Body,
brings together several papers showing the ways in which language connects to viewpoint allocation and embodied action. This includes a study of
gesture, but also discussions on the role of viewpoint research within cognitive linguistics and a look at the potential and importance of multimodal
approaches to language and cognition. For example, in teaching an appropriate body posture in dance, an instructor may use an unrealistic conceptualization of a situation as a means to prompt appropriate posture or motion
(Müller and Ladewig). Such studies suggest that the mind-body engagement
is a feedback loop, rather than a unidirectional path. At the same time, the
body can be prompted into spontaneous unusual posture and gesture by an
attempt to linguistically describe a visual image (Mittelberg). As these examples suggest, multimodal contexts reveal the interactive quality of language, vision, and body motion, in ways that lead to new conceptualizations. The interaction between modalities is a subject that invites a number
of new questions regarding language and embodied cognition.
The studies in this section also show that the now familiar trio of ‘body,
mind, and language’ has more recently been complicated by another broad
concept—viewpoint. As was suggested in the papers published in Dancygier and Sweetser (2012), ‘viewpoint’ phenomena direct the choices of
linguistic expressions in ways much more complex than a representation of
spatial viewpoint. The papers in the section devoted to viewpoint develop
the idea further, suggesting that the concept may provide a clear and unam-
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biguous way to connect language, gesture, and other forms of embodiment.
Sweetser’s paper gives a broad theoretical overview of instances when different communicative modalities represent different viewpoints, even if
both (or all) are related to the speaker’s experience of the event. Tobin looks
at presuppositions as ‘curse of knowledge’ phenomena and uses Mental
Spaces Theory to show how perspective-taking participates in such construals. DeLiema and Steen show the importance of looking at viewpointed
gestures as evidence of dynamic processes of learning and conceptualization. On another methodological note, Steen and Turner make the case for a
massive multimodal data source as the basis of multi-faceted, and more
exhaustive, linguistic analysis. These papers clearly show how cognition
relies on multiple communicative modalities and what a rich direction for
further research such studies represent.
Finally, the section on Sound, Image, and Communicative Modalities
presents analyses focusing on the role of visual and aural/oral forms, including music and vocal performance, in reflecting conceptualization processes.
Sharon, Fais, and Vatikiotis-Bateson report on research that shows that bodily movement and gesture may be crucial elements of a singer’s artistic expression. They consider the genre of Art Song (poetic lyrics and music) as
an example of an inherently multimodal artistic genre, which has long resisted embracing the embodied movement as the third modality. Galeano
takes the question in a different direction, asking about the correlations between musical structure and syntax, in descriptive terms and in avenues of
acquisition. The correlation between sound and embodied behaviour is also
centre-stage in Clark, Perlman, and Johansson Falck’s paper, analyzing correlations between spatial verticality and pitch. Their discussion of ‘vocal
iconicity’ and ‘vocal gesture’ opens new avenues in the study of embodied
performance. Finally, embodiment becomes the central concept in the study
by Chow and Harrell, looking at technological innovation as a mechanism
which prompts alignment between bodies and material objects through the
very design of these objects. The section thus shows again how multimodal
interaction of embodied modalities lies at the core of meaning emergence.
The above examples show just some of the many avenues of interaction
among concepts from cognitive disciplines and subdisciplines. But the
overall message of the volume seems to be that the next stage in the study
of language and cognition will need to focus on the types of networks that
emerge across various modalities. Further, creativity can possibly be talked
about not just in terms of the innovative use of pre-existing concepts, but in
specific cross-modal and multimodal combinations. The nature of the interactions between the body, the mind, and language may be the area of study
NEW DIRECTIONS IN COGNITIVE LINGUISTICS / xix
that needs to continue to develop for us to better understand the role of each
of these fundamental components of communication.
Together, the papers collected here show new directions in the study of
perceptual and conceptual connections between language and other communicative forms. They also open the discipline of cognitive linguistics to
an engagement with more centrally creative domains of meaning emergence. This volume offers a substantial testament to the profitability of ongoing expansions of embodied cognitive approaches to interdisciplinary
questions of communication, modalities, and creativity.
References
Dancygier, Barbara, and Eve Sweetser. 2014. Figurative Language. New York:
Cambridge University Press.
Dancygier, Barbara, and Eve Sweetser (eds). 2012. Viewpoint in Language: A Multimodal Perspective. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Forceville, Charles J., and Eduardo Urios-Aparisi. 2009. Multimodal Metaphor.
Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter.
Goldberg, Adele. 1996. Conceptual Structure, Discourse and Language. Stanford:
CSLI.
Müller, Cornelia, Alan Cienki, Ellen Fricke, Silva Ladewig, David McNeill, and
Jana Bressem (eds.). 2013. Body–Language–Communication: An International
Handbook on Multimodality in Human Interaction. Volume 1. Berlin/New
York: Mouton de Gruyter.
Stockwell, Peter. 2009. Texture: A Cognitive Aesthetics of Reading. Edinburgh:
Edinburgh University Press.
Veale, Tony, Kurt Feyaerts, and Charles Forceville (eds). 2013. Creativity and the
Agile Mind: A Multi-Disciplinary Study of a Multi-Faceted Phenomenon. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.